Moon Magic
by knittingknots
Summary: Post Manga. Sesshoumaru/Adult Rin. Takes place one night when Rin is approximately 20. It's a hot summer's night, Rin slips out for a bath in a moonlit pool, and Sesshoumaru, coming back after several days absence, discovers her...


_I do not own InuYasha or any of the characters created by Rumiko Takahashi_

**Moon Magic**

The moon, it is said, can weave magic too irresistible to ignore, especially when it rises high on a warm autumn night.

Rin felt its tug this night. For four nights she had been alone in this place, her lord and husband gone. Missing his presence, the touch of his youki, his scent, sleep escaped her. Her bedding was sweaty because of the heat, her body tired of being pent up in a house, even if it was under the gentle care of her brother-in-law and his family.

Quietly, quietly, she slid open the door. Dressed only in a thin summer kosode, she slipped out of the house and let the moonlight guide her down the path through the garden to the pond beyond. Spring-fed, the cool waters reflected the brightness of the moon, and promised soothing, rest, relief from her uneasiness.

Unfastening her obi, she let the soft cotton glide to the ground. The moonlight played on her skin, highlighting it and the soft curves of her petite body. She stepped into the water.

The moon wove its magic around Sesshoumaru as he neared the house high in its mountain valley. Stepping out of the shadows for a moment to pause at a rise above the house, he breathed in the night air, letting the magic that was afoot tonight wash over him, through him. Old stories of tennyo, descending from the moon with their feathered robes came to mind teasing him. The moonlight touched his clothes and his eyes and his hair, white and amber and silver, making him seem spectral, otherworldly as the images haunting him. Shaking his head, he moved on.

But even as he walked, the magic increased. He felt the tug of something, just on the edge of his mind, a faint trail of scent and sound. He allowed his feet, as moon-drunk as the rest of him, to wander towards it.

Her voice, soft, delicate, unexpected, reached him first.

"Tell me, silent moon,  
tell me what you remember  
of his silver hair,  
how it floats on the breeze  
whenever he walks in the night."

He knew that voice, had heard it whisper words in the midnight, but had not expected to hear it tonight, out of doors in the moonlight.

"Tell me, O cold moon,  
how his eyes, they flash golden,  
caught by your pale light  
as he passes through night's shadows  
whenever he walks in the dark."

Moving silently, he passed unseen from shadow to shadow, drawing nearer the pond.

"How I long for him  
when you shine brightest, O Moon,  
and he is not there,  
and in the long, hot midnight,  
I find no rest in your light."

Peering through branches that sheltered him in their shadows, he saw her, sitting on a slab of stone, her feet dangling in the cool waters of the spring. The moon highlighted her skin with soft luminescence, accenting the soft curve of her hip and waist and breast with a delicate play of light and shadow. His breath caught in his throat for a moment as he watched her. The breeze, which had hidden her scent from him up to this time, shifted, and he caught the warm spice that was especially hers, tinged both with longing and a faint touch of melancholy. He could feel the stirrings of something within, a warm glow that would fast ramp up to a hunger that would demand to be satisfied as he breathed deeply, yet he, caught by the magic of the moonlight, was unwilling, quite yet, to disturb the beautiful picture in front of him.

She bent forward, and caught a double handful of water, brought it up to the base of her neck, and let the water trickle down, cascading in moonlit rivulets down her chest, across the soft perfection of her breasts, the cup of her navel, to disappear into the shadows below.

A single pearl-like drop clung to the dusky peak of one breast. His tongue itched to catch that drop, to trace it back to its source, and beyond, the warm softness of her neck, the sweet cavern of her mouth.

It was too much. Spying her robe on the ground, he silently glided over and picked it up, replacing it with his two swords, then intentionally made a noise.

She looked up, her dark eyes going from surprise to smolder almost immediately. She said nothing, but a glow lit up her face as she watched him step near her.

He swallowed, his golden eyes capturing his as he stood above her. "A tennyo cannot fly back to the heavens unless she has her feather robe, O moon maiden. I have your robe here." He held up her kosode. "You cannot fly away."

She stood up, beautiful, petite, dressed only in the moonlight and walked towards him.

"Then, my Lord," she said, standing in front of him, not meeting his eyes, but lightly laying a hand on his chest, "You have the better of me. Whatever shall I do?"

He covered her tiny hand with his much larger, wrapped the other around her waist, pulled her to him firmly. "Be with me. Tonight. Now."

"Always," she whispered, then pulled the knot of his obi.


End file.
